A Dark-Adapted Eye (7 page)

Her long-lashed eyes widened. “Wait—”

“All you have to do is help us,” my brother continued hastily. “I remember you as a human, but as a vampire you might give us a small advantage. I’m going to get you some blood so you don’t attack any of us. Les will stay here and watch you.”

Before Aleskie could say anything, Ivory slammed out of the house. A moment later his pickup squealed angrily down the street.

“Where’s he getting blood from?” I asked. “The hospital?”

“Yeah.” Les cut a sharp glance at the vampire girl. “But that’s not an ideal option. People need that blood for saving lives, not feeding vampires.”

“You don’t know how much it means—” Aleskie started.

“Save it,” he snapped.

“There’s something else,” she said, and waited until he looked at her before continuing. “I know where Lucinda is going to be tomorrow night. That club. The big one. It’s supposedly her favorite.”

“Stars,” I said.

Rubbing a hand over his eyes, Les turned to me. “Ivory and I were arguing about this when you came home yesterday. We’ve talked about it ever since the murdered girls started showing up, but we’re never going to agree on it. He’s not going to like me asking you now, but it’s not his decision.”

“What isn’t?”

“Whether or not you’d like to help us catch this vampire. Lucinda.”

“What do you mean?” I heard the creeping apprehension in my voice.

Les’s eyes were serious, his expression grim. I could see how hard it was for him to say his next words. “I mean, Asha, would you be our bait.”

~

Being a vampire meant falling into a coma-like sleep during the day, at least as far as Aleskie was concerned. She overtook Ivory’s bed after slurping up the bag of blood he’d brought home. He tacked a blanket over his window to keep it dark for her, and then he and Les traded off sleeping and checking on her. They were rightly suspicious of her vampire nature, but she never moved.

“She’s nearly healed already,” Ivory told me midmorning, while Les slept. He stowed a couple extra blood bags in the fridge.

“But they really hurt her,” I said, eyeing the bags with distaste. “Those guys who jumped her.”

“Vampires heal fast. Sleep helps. And blood.”

I shuddered a little. “Vampires are so . . . so . . .”

“Believe me, Asha,” he said sagely. “I know.”

“If you agree to help us,” Les told me when Ivory next dozed, “we’ll go to Stars tomorrow night.”

“Okay . . .”

“I want you to think about it. I don’t want you to worry because this might not even amount to anything, Aleskie could be wrong, or lying . . . Anyway, I’m going to check the place out t
onight, so we’re at least somewhat prepared.”

“Right. Well, I’ll let you know in the morning.”

“Don’t feel pressured. You don’t have to help.”

It had been an odd day and I didn’t know what to do with myself. The house hummed with the usual afternoon sounds: car doors slamming as the remaining people in the neighborhood r
eturned from work, the shrieks of children freed from school.

Bait.

I sat in my room thinking about it. The very word reminded me of fishing, which wasn't exactly a pleasant association. I'd been once with my family, the one and only time we ever did anything together. We’d camped up in the mountains before the vampires came. Ivory had tried to show me how to put the worm on the hook but I was too disgusted to even touch the thing, so I'd used raw bacon instead. I hadn't caught anything and after a while I'd grown tired of fishing anyway. It was boring, requiring a patience even I didn't have.

Ivory wouldn't want to let me wriggle around like that worm on the hook and he wouldn’t ask me to. I was his sister. What did it mean that Les, on the other hand, was willing to ask me to put myself out there to attract a vampire? Though if there was no other way to catch this vampire called Lucinda, it was better to use me, I supposed, than some innocent stranger. Maybe that was his reasoning.

Tomorrow night, he had said. It would happen so soon. Too soon. There wasn’t nearly enough time to decide how I truly felt about the matter, yet I had to decide quickly. No pressure, he’d said. Except I did feel pressure, because how could I say no? This was the first time they'd asked for my help. The first time they'd needed it. Maybe I didn't want to be potential vampire fodder, but I didn't want to let them down. Or any of the girls who might become Lucinda’s future victims if I refused to help.

I couldn’t stop picturing the girl in the park. I imagined others like her, dead because I’d done nothing.

Les left after dark to check out Stars and the surrounding area, while Ivory and Aleskie, who’d finally woken, talked in his room. Since he’d said she could be useful to us, I assumed they were discussing vampire-related things. I hoped whatever she had to say was helpful, but it was beyond odd having a vampire in the house when I’d been taught they were evil killers—and when I’d seen evidence of what they did to people.

Thinking about helping made me feel strangely peaceful. I took the phone up to the roof and called Criseyde during her break. She filled me in on some work gossip while I trained my tel
escope on Saturn. Fine-tuning the focus, I looked at its rings of ice particles that were like tiny moons and cast shadows on the surface of the planet.

“So he’s probably getting fired,” she said, wrapping up a story about a time thief coworker.

“That sucks. I’m looking at Saturn.”

“You are such a nerd.”

“Oh yeah? Wait till you hear this.”

I didn’t tell her about the dead girl, but I filled her in on our unexpected houseguest and what Les had asked me to do. She remained silent after I said I was considering it.

“So? What do you think about it?” I asked.

“
I
wouldn’t do it,” she said. “Just thinking about those vampires at Shiver . . . I’d never voluntarily put myself in a situation like that again.”

“But it wouldn’t be a situation like that. There’d only be one vampire, with Ivory and Les ready to attack at the right moment. I’d never be in any real danger.” My tone was almost fli
ppant, masking my apprehensive feelings. It was true, though, that if everything went right I wouldn’t get hurt. If I was going to do this, I had to believe that.

“Still,” said Criseyde.

“I could be useful. I could prevent other girls from getting killed.”

“If you think it will impress Les, go ahead. But you’d better be sure you wouldn’t mind d
ying for him.”

I bristled at her insinuation. “I wouldn’t do it to impress him,” I said stiffly. “I’d do it b
ecause I want to, and because it’s right. And I don’t need your approval. I just wanted your opinion because you’re my friend.”

“I did give you my opinion.”

“Well. Thanks. Talk to you later, I guess.”

After we hung up, I continued to explore the sky for a couple hours. Somehow I was calm enough to appreciate the stars and the spaces between them. My mind turned Les’s request over and over even though I already knew what I would tell him when he woke up tomorrow. Ever since he’d asked, I’d intended to help him and Ivory. There had never been any question of me saying no.

six

e
ccentricity: deviation of a curve or orbit from circularity

Anxious. Impatient. Tense.

I was feeling all these things over breakfast the next morning. Up until now I had been largely useless. I had never done a thing of consequence. Now, suddenly, I was putting my life at risk to help catch a killer of girls my own age. Lucinda. Maybe she’d killed girls Cris or I had known in school. If she weren’t stopped, maybe one of us would become her victim someday.

Tonight was important. I couldn’t mess it up.

After I finished eating, I walked back down the hall to my room. It was in the bend of the hall, right between Les’s and Ivory’s. Pausing at my door, I could hear muffled voices from i
nside Ivory’s room. It seemed he and the vampire girl had a lot to talk about.

I studied my constellation book most of the morning. When I heard Les come out of his room, I put the book down and found him in the kitchen. Ivory and Aleskie entered together a moment later, though they didn’t look any friendlier toward one another. My brother was e
xhausted, judging by the purple beneath his eyes. Aleskie looked better, most of her bruises and cuts having faded completely.

“Aleskie and I have talked,” Ivory said. “She’s here to help us. She didn’t become a vampire of her own will and doesn’t have any loyalty to them. I think we can trust her.”

Les studied the vampire girl without expression. “If you think so.”

“I’ve explained what will happen to her if she tries to hurt us.” Les just shrugged. “Look,” Ivory said, “what would you think if one of us were attacked and turned? She deserves a chance, doesn’t she?”

“I guess. But let’s not get too comfortable and forget what she is.”

Ivory relaxed and cut his gaze to Aleskie. “We won’t.”

A moment of silence followed and my fingers traced invisible patterns on the counter. “I’m going to do it,” I said, trying to sound brave. “I’ll help.”

My brother looked at me. “Help with what?”

“I’m going to help catch Lucinda.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I asked her,” Les informed him. “She made the decision herself.”

“As if she would say no to you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, my cheeks beginning to burn.

“She knows how dangerous vampires are. You’ve been drilling it into her head for years.” Les turned to me. “You know you don’t have to do this, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

Ivory shook his head, making a sound of irritation. “Whatever. I’m too tired to argue about it, and it’s not like anyone listens to me anyway. Be ready when we leave, Asha, or you’re staying here.” With those words, he stalked back to his room.

“I guess it’s your turn to babysit me,” Aleskie said snidely to Les.

He looked at her, unimpressed. “That’s right.” Grabbing a leftover cinnamon roll, he nodded for her to go into the living room ahead of him. He wasn’t as willing to trust her as Ivory seemed to be.

There was no need for me to help watch Aleskie, so I decided to pass some time at the library. I biked to the old, low-lying building studded with cerulean tiles. Cramped and dim, it was in desperate need of renovation, as most of the libraries around Las Secas were, but the majority of the city’s funds went to hospitals and police and parks. There weren’t enough people left here who cared about a reading environment.

Pulling out several large astronomy books, I spread them over a private table and amused myself by identifying constellations of the southern hemisphere, stars I had never seen and probably never would. I dreamed of visiting famous observatories all over the world and using the best telescopes available to man. I looked at beautiful pictures of lunar eclipses, excited that I would see one for myself in just a few days.

The hours until dark seemed interminable.

After a while the pictures began to blur together and my mind drifted. I thought about how each vampire in existence had been bitten by another vampire, but not just bitten—
changed
. Ivory had once described to me, as far as he knew, the process of becoming a vampire.

A vampire would drain a human almost to the point of death, he’d said. It wouldn’t take just a sip, or even a pint, but practically every drop. And when the vampire fed the human some of its own blood, the human was somehow healed and reborn as a vamp. Ivory didn’t know the science behind it, he’d rushed to inform me, but he knew it was something to do with the combination of being almost dead and the exchange of blood.

“It isn’t easy,” he’d told me, “which is why there aren’t a lot of new vamps running around Las Secas.”

“Which is why we think there’s a chance we can actually get rid of them all,” Les had added.

I’d never thought it was lucky that Rade had only bitten me, but now I felt disturbingly grateful he’d stopped there.

However, plenty of vampires at various points in time
hadn’t
stopped, obviously. Where had they all come from? Who had started this race of predators, and how long ago? Did the vampires even have a creation myth? Maybe Aleskie could tell me.

Driven with sudden curiosity, I returned the astronomy books to their shelves and rode home.
Les, Ivory, and Aleskie were lounging about in the living room when I arrived. No one was speaking. The news was on but Aleskie looked bored and irritated.

“Where do vampires come from?” I asked without preamble, sitting down on the couch b
eside her. I curled my legs beneath me and waited for her reply.

“What?”

“I mean, do they have a myth of origin? Like Adam and Eve or something?”

“Well, yes. But I’m sure it’s just a myth, like you said. I don’t know how vampires
really
came about.” She looked at Ivory and Les before returning her blue gaze to me. “They call him Pater Luna, the father of vampires. He comes from the stars and is so powerful a human would weep just being in his presence. They say he put vampires on earth to prevent the wicked idleness of humans.”

Interested, I leaned forward to hear more.

“He’s supposed to return some day. And vampires will do his bidding and humans will be their slaves.”

“That’s creepy,” I said.

Aleskie chewed thoughtfully on her full lower lip. “Actually,” she said slowly, looking at Ivory as if for guidance. “Actually, Pater Luna is the reason the vampires are here.”

I gave a small gasp of morbid excitement. “What, they think he’s returning
soon
?”

“We can talk about this later,” Ivory said. “It’s almost time to go.”

Reluctantly I rose from the couch and headed to my room to get ready. I had picked out my outfit ahead of time: the same black jeans I’d worn to Shiver, the black flats, and a purple sleeveless blouse, which was the nicest shirt I owned. I dressed and pulled my hair into a ponytail to show off my neck, figuring vampires probably appreciated that sort of thing.

I tried to apply my makeup as expertly as Criseyde would have done, but when I surveyed the results in the mirror, I thought my eyes looked more smudged than smoky, my lip gloss be
tter suited for summer days than nights. It would have to do. I hoped it was enough to draw Lucinda’s attention to me rather than some other girl.

Shoving my ID into my back pocket, I walked out into the living room, where the boys and Aleskie were waiting. “I’m ready,” I announced in a shaky voice. I caught Les’s eyes sliding away from me and felt my stomach tumble.

Not the time for that
, I scolded myself. I had to concentrate on something other than Les for a change—something that meant life or death. For me and so many others.

Aleskie rode in the truck with Ivory and me, squashed between us. Les followed behind on his Shadow. I felt both giddy and nervous knowing I would finally see firsthand what they did for a living. I knew none of the details of their work—who hired them, how they killed vampires, what happened to a dead vampire, or anything else. I had never thought to ask and suddenly I was sure I didn’t really want answers. Even if I managed to forget for a second the role I was about to play, the night loomed ahead of me with ominous intent, neon-streaked and hiding ghastly truths.

Ivory, Aleskie and I hadn’t spoken a single word in the time it took to reach the club. My brother parked on the street near an alley, not far from the club entrance.

“Lead her this way if you can get her to come out with you,” Ivory instructed. “We’ll be waiting in the alley. If not, just get the hell away from her.”

Les sauntered up behind us, his shoulders tense, hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied uncertainly.

The club was Stars, the place Criseyde had lied about going to the night we’d gone to Shiver, and it was one of the more popular places in the city. Since it attracted so many girls around my age, many of them hoping to go home with someone or other, it wasn’t surprising Lucinda would choose it as her hunting ground. It was big, and it was easy to be anonymous.

I walked away from the others and stood at the end of the line, trying to look bored, as if I did this all the time. The only way I could appear even remotely normal was by pushing down all my fears and visions of how this night could go wrong. My face was a mask. No one would ever guess I was nearly faint with panic.

Moving forward in the line, I took a breath and reminded myself of my duties. Once I got inside, I had to find Lucinda before she chose someone else as her prey. I didn’t even know what she looked like, so I mentally ran through Ivory’s list of how to identify a vampire: glittering eyes, slight protrusion of the upper lip, no visible veins, lackluster hair and skin.

Finally I showed the doorman my ID, and I was in.

Stars was a dark, cavernous space pounding with repetitive rhythms and packed with people. Humans. I had no reason to be afraid of them, but I wasn’t entirely confident I could find Lucinda amidst them all. I held my chin high, swiveling my head around as I shoved my way to the bar. I’d get a drink and sit down, appearing casual as I surveyed the crowd.

“Vodka cranberry,” I shouted to the bartender.

“You twenty-one?” he shouted back.

“Yes.” I tried to sound vaguely insulted.

“My ass. Let me see some ID.”

I scoffed, scrambling for an excuse. The club was eighteen and over, which meant I’d gotten through the door without problems. It hadn’t even occurred to me the bartender would ask for ID.

“Look,” I said, faking more displeasure than I actually felt, “I’ve never had this problem here before.”

“No ID, no drink.”

Just as I was about to give in and ask for a soda, a smoky voice to my left said, “Rich. Fix me a vodka cranberry, would you?”

I turned, my eyes landing on a pale woman with a long curtain of straight black hair. Her eyes were made up heavily, her unpainted mouth a jaded line. I knew, even before I saw the gli
tter of her gray eyes, I was looking at Lucinda. I forced a smile onto my face when she accepted the drink and slid it down the bar to me, ignoring the bartender shaking his head in disgust.

“Wow. Thanks,” I said.

Sipping the drink, I smiled gratefully at her and sat down. She stared at me without expression and I couldn’t help but fidget a little under her gaze. I turned to look out at the crowd, allowing her to study me for a moment.

“This is good,” I told Lucinda after another sip of the drink. “Thanks again.”

“No trouble,” she murmured.

I shifted in my seat. “Anything exciting going on here tonight?”

“Not yet.”

“Well,” I said with what was meant to be a jaded laugh, though my hands trembled, “I guess these places can get boring. Night after night, it’s always the same thing. Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother anymore.”

Lucinda just nodded and I scrambled for something else to say. My small talk skills were horrid when I was petrified out of my mind.

“I’m Asha.” My voice was bright as I tried to hide the trembling in it. Perhaps a little too bright, and I wondered if it was smart to have given her my real name. Too late now. I took a
nother drink and tried to sound sultrier. “What’s your name?”

“Lucy.”

Looking down into my drink, I couldn’t decide whether to congratulate myself or run. It
was
her. I was sure of it, but I just kept smiling like an oblivious idiot. “Check out that guy over there,” I said, because a random guy was something Criseyde and I would discuss. “Maybe I’ll try to talk to him later.”

Lucinda didn’t look, which was fine because I didn’t have a specific guy in mind. “My taste is more feminine,” she said.

I didn’t even have to fake a blush. “Oh.
Oh
.”

“Like you, actually.”

This was getting real all of a sudden. Lucinda was marking me as her prey. I hesitated. “I’ve never . . . I mean, I’ve always wondered . . .”

She leaned toward me with the most interest she’d shown since I sat down and gave me a conspiratorial smile full of suggestion. “We might be able to make something exciting happen tonight after all.”